The Chieftain’s Daughter
Page 9
“It is not the time to be stubborn, Little One.” Mechan touched her face, his fingers falling down the length of her cheek. “Trust me.”
Ishara’s green eyes shifted back to the tooth Dahlia extended toward her. Taking it into her hand, she sniffled and mumbled softly, “Do not call me that.”
She smiled a perfect smile. Mechan could happily die if he wished to. But spirits how he wanted to stay with her.
Without much warning, Ishara sliced the tooth into his skin, immediately drawing forth crimson.
He could hear the blood rushing to his head, gathering between his ears. It lulled him away. Away. Away.
He saw Ishara in gold, shackled. Beautiful. Everything about her was beautiful. He loved her too much to let go. He needed her. She was the part of his life that had been missing for all the years after his first wife’s death. She was the reason why his heart beat, why his veins pulsed. She could infuriate him and defeat him and love him all at once.
The blood stopped. A cold wave seized his body, shocking his very core. Mechan was numb. Dead. He couldn’t even hear the way Ishara cried just before his lids closed and the world fell out from under him.
* * *
Where true love survives, so will life.
Ishara held her dead husband. Racking sobs shook her body. She had never cried this way before. She never cried in front of people before. Or her father. It showed weakness, but without Mechan, she was just that—weak—and she did not care what anyone else thought.
“Mechan. Mechan!” She shook him by the shoulders, but his head only wobbled back and forth, dropping like an infant’s head would when not supported. “Wake up! You said to trust you. You said to trust you!”
“Ishara…” Her father put a comforting hand upon her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.
“Do not touch me.” Barking the order at her father would also be a high offense, if it mattered any more. Nothing mattered anymore. “He said to trust him. You said it would work.”
Dahlia sunk away from Ishara’s side, stood, and melted somewhere behind the crowd of people. Ishara continued to sob, tears falling then tracing down Mechan’s face. “Please…please do not leave me. Do not leave me.”
When she looked at him, all she saw was a shell. Her husband no longer lived inside his body. His spirit left. He left. Ishara settled the body on the floor, then leaned over and pressed her lips against Mechan’s. They were still warm, only the edges felt cool. “How will I live without your love?” The words were whispered to the corpse as secrets would be whispered.
Behind her, she heard the crowd of Oolani and Manahotchi gasp. She turned to look at what they would dare make a commotion over while she mourned the chieftain’s loss. Her lips parted to scold, she did not care who she yelled at or why, she just needed to yell. Scream at the top of her lungs. Grieve.
But when she turned, she came face-to-face with a lioness. The same one from the cave. Its dark, soulful eyes stared through Ishara into her very spirit. The beast moved past her and crouched down beside Mechan. “No, don’t!”
The lioness opened her mouth and roared, its voice filling the camp. Ishara sat paralyzed on the ground, unsure of what she could do. She continued to roar, over and over again, as if encouraging Mechan to come back to this world.
His toes moved.
His toes moved?
Ishara blinked, leaning forward to observe. Surely she hadn’t seen that.
Fingers moved.
His legs jerked once. His arms twitched after that.
“Mechan?”
The lioness moved away from the chieftain, stared at Ishara again, and then prowled away back into the trees.
The chieftain lived.
“Ishara?”
She sprung forward, tears in her eyes, and knelt over Mechan’s body again. “You…you are alive. How? You were dead.”
Her husband smiled, sitting up. His powerful arms, once lifeless, wrapped around her form and she felt small and safe. “Didn’t I tell you to trust me?”
“Yes, but you died, Mechan.” Ishara buried her head against his chest and closed her eyes, urging herself not to break out in tears again.
“You are stubborn.” He kissed the crown of her head and squeezed her close.
The Oolani chieftain cleared his throat as he looked down at the two. Having witnessed the whole scene, Ishara noticed that the wrinkles around his eyes seemed softer. His pensive expression gave way to one of love and understanding.
Mechan rose first, then helped his wife to her feet. She clasped his hand, unwilling to let go of him and tensely waited for the formal introduction to happen. Father and husband. Chieftain to chieftain.
“My daughter’s husband, I greet you.”
“The spirits and the Manahotchi welcome you here.” The formal greeting was supposed to happen between tribes before one set foot on the other’s land. Mechan shook the Oolani man’s arm, grasping around the wrist as was traditional.
“Let this day start a new age for our people.” Ishara’s father turned toward the crowd and raised Mechan’s arm up into the air. “Let this lesson in love serve as a lesson for us all.”
Ishara smiled at her father and husband. Though the camp lay in ruins. The Manahotchi men brought out the celebratory deerskin drums and began to pound on them. Dahlia peeked out and smiled from around the people in the crowd, who now all clasped hands in greeting, no longer enemies.
The drums pounded along with Ishara’s heart, which beat for her people, Oolani and Manahotchi. Most of all, it beat for Mechan. She felt the pulse in her fingertips as they pressed into his palm. The Oolani chieftain’s daughter smiled and let the beat of the drums carry her away into her new life.
~ About the Author ~
Leia Rice resides in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband and her dog, Sailor, and primarily writes historical fiction and women’s fiction. She holds her Master’s in writing from the Johns Hopkins University.
Find out more about Leia Rice here:
http://www.leiarice.com
Twitter: leiarice
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/leiariceauthor
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